


Unexpected Champion

by realjane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hermione's good with a sword, Sir Charlie - Freeform, Swordfighting, royal au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27754336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realjane/pseuds/realjane
Summary: The tournament is open to any knight who might challenge the best swordswoman in the realm. She happens to be the princess, and her most formidable foe is a knight errant.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Charlie Weasley
Comments: 15
Kudos: 36





	Unexpected Champion

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I have had this floating around in my noggin for FOREVER, and so naturally, instead of working on my WIP's, you get this one-shot. Enjoy? lol The timeline is superfluous, it could be literally any era in English history prior to like Queen Victoria.
> 
> Ps. I am not a swordswoman and I googled a lot, so please forgive me for not knowing perfect sword lingo.

She let them choose their own weapons for the tournament. It was only fair. A knight’s choice spoke volumes of him. The colors the knight chose, and the order from whence he came, spoke to his usefulness to the realm. And it was the way he armored himself which spoke of what he thought of  _ her. _

None had impressed with their choices, and after seven rounds in the ring, she was no more winded than she was wooed. Seven knights were carted out of the dirt, clutching their dignities--many of them bleeding, too.

The knight with the spear - he was afraid to get within striking distance. He had no skill for strategy, and even less skill for wooing a princess. He favored a piercing blow over an artful dance, and therefore, he was a coward and a dunce. The Order of the Eagle in cobalt offered wit, and a hunger for knowledge, but their knight was a tragic disappointment in his long robes and foolishly flimsy slippers, which he had abandoned in panic as soon as her blade tickled the hem of his cloak. He seemed likely to jump at the slightest provocation, and therefore he would not make her a worthy companion.

Under gold and crimson, the Order of the Gryffin offered bravery and courage, with chivalry as its prime directive, but the knight chose a broadsword. He was aggressive and certain of himself, but with no finesse. He jumped into the fray readily, but was felled by a calculated slash to the space between plates in his full steel armor. He had demanded a do-over, which he was not granted. He was the loudest, strongest, and yet least intuitive of them all. She slashed his cape to punctuate his loss. It was only when her rapier pierced his ear that the knight admitted defeat, and a man who has no respect for the achievements of his opponent would have no respect for his wife, when she was queen.

The challenger with the knives was tricky, and not to be trusted, but he came the closest to succeeding against her elegant style. He smiled, even as he lunged and twisted, glamorous in his emerald and black tailored coat and mesh mask. He wiled his way into her reach, but lost focus the moment she let him think he could win. He was just the sort of man who would stab her in the back; he had no regard for romance or honor, and bore the brunt of her disapproval in a pommel to the nose. He still had the audacity to look devilishly handsome, even as blood streamed down his face. But the knight of the Order of the Serpent was not  _ the champion. _

The bow, the mace, the whip, and bare hands - too scared, too thick, too punitive, too brutal, and none affiliated with an order which might bring distinction to her majesty.

In marigold and black, the Order of the Badger offered justice and loyalty, but they would not put forward a champion. Instead, the lord of the order provided the royal family with a fine suckling pig to roast on her wedding day, and the princess did jest that the swine was the finest suitor yet offered.

When she had run out of challengers, the princess took a hearty swig of wine offered from her proud father. Her mother had been too aghast to attend. The crowd applauded their princess in her fine leather suit and split-front skirt. Someday she would make a fine warrior queen. If ever she could find a knight worth an alliance (or a husband, but that title was saved for only the most impressive of men, and Hermione doubted greatly that such a man existed in any realm), the future of the kingdom would be secured for generations to come. She would be crowned, consort or no. But as the only child of King Daniel o’er the Grange, there were certain expectations for the lineage to continue. But that hardly mattered to _her._

The sun struck gold just above the horizon; a new fellow was announced. 

There was yet one more knight, belated though he was. The trumpets beckoned him, and the princess groaned. She took her rapier in hand and wiped down the blade with the silk cloth. One more man to collect an offering from, one more to prove he wasn’t worthy. She did not regard the knight as he entered, but the crowd did.

By going silent.

The air was thick and dusty, and smelled like sweat and blood (neither of which had been spent by the defender). The silence in the arena hung on the crunching footsteps in the dirt. His.

When finally she cast a glance back at him, even Princess Hermione had to admit that he looked  _ formidable.  _ The grey knight entered under a black flag in full plate regalia--gambeson quilted with glinting dragons, black velvet cape draped from shoulder to shoulder and o’er round his neck, and helmet festooned with spines from a gold dragon. When he stepped into the ring, the knight unclipped the chinstrap and removed his helmet. He was fierce looking, with wild grey eyes. He was older than her, but not so much as to be without appeal; it was his jaw, shadowed in a ruddy beard, and his romanesque nose, and his broad shoulders which recommended him most at first glance. He was surprisingly short for such an imposing man, though he had a good head on her at least. 

A squire eagerly ran forward to take the challenger’s magnificent helm in hand, and waited patiently for his next instruction. But the knight--with magnificent hair like burnished copper--turned his back to the ring (and therefore to the princess) and gestured for the squire to unclip his plate armor. The boy did so. The clips were released at his sides, his shoulders; the knight removed his gauntlets and gloves, burdening the scrawny squire with an armful of blackened steel. He was left in naught but a grey shirt, of which he promptly cuffed the sleeves up to his elbows, and black trousers into which his shirt was tucked. His boots remained, unburdened by greaves or sabatons to hinder his shins and feet. 

When he deemed himself properly attired, he turned back to the throng and found his opponent’s eye readily. He stared with a piercing gaze, as he tied back his long hair with a leather strap, and then held out his hand. The squire produced a rapier. The sword was clean in its design; the guard was simple, the blade was sharp and true, and the weapon looked well cared-for. It might as well be the twin of her own favorite sword, which glinted from her hip in recognition of its equal.

“To which order do you belong?” the king bellowed.

“None, sir.” The knight shook his head once.

“That black flag seems to suggest otherwise.”

“We are a mere brotherhood and no more,” he said. His voice was gruff but not aggressive. Measured. Sure, but not cocky. “We protect those who are not able to fend for themselves.”

“What name do you call yourselves?”

“None we might own to, and we answer to none but our honor.” He lifted his chin and the streaking sunlight shot his irises through with gold, turning them green. 

“Why are you here?” She couldn’t help herself; leaning against the rail, even as her father questioned the last challenger, the princess wondered how such a man had come to learn of her challenge to the realm, let alone decided that he--unaffiliated as he was with any knightly order, and with no sponsorship in kind--was up to the task: 

_ Let he who finds himself armed in essential qualities come forward, and perform a test of skill. He who is worthy in deed, oath, and right will win the hand of Her Majesty, Princess Hermione. _

“Do you believe I cannot fend for myself?” she challenged, pushing off the rail. She circled counter-clockwise, favoring her dominant hand, and he countered her movement at once. The test was begun.

He shook his head. “Nay, for I know the lady is a skilled fighter, and has as much skill in it as any man.”

“And yet you chose  _ my  _ weapon, knowing so. Why?”

The knight smirked, then. “What better way to prove my skill than to match my sword to her majesty’s challenge? What--have none of your challengers heard  _ Elegy to Her Steel? _ I believe I have heard it sung in every alehouse from here to the Antipodes.”

She willed herself not to blush. “That is a children’s rhyme.”

_ “And lo, my lady with swept-hilt in hand, turned her blade on a monstrous band, and when her steel hath had a taste, it pierced again--bloody sport its taste.”  _ He chuckled then, and took his guard-- _ her _ stance, her position, her angle, every bit a self-study of her style. “I would sing it now but I fear my sour notes would give me an unfair advantage.”

“Would I had made it a choral competition,” she muttered. She spent but a moment on the choice:  _ he knows me. He knows my style, what I favor. How? _ And then she let the blade swish, balancing on the pad of her index finger. Let it flow, let it find the target,  _ trust your steel. _ She fell into her stance, like a perfect mirror of him. “You’ve studied,” she said. She raised her eyebrows.

He shrugged. Then, he lunged. He was too quick, too heavy-footed in the delivery and she easily parried. Steel echoed off steel. She skipped out of his reach and her skirt flourished behind her. 

“I know you prefer Capoferro, even though he is the most  _ popular _ theorist on style,” he said.

“You said it yourself. He’s popular. I’m not the only swordswoman who does so.”

“Maybe not. But when you’re tired, you fall back on Agrippa.” He lunged again, but she deftly ducked beneath his arm and the tip of her sword glanced off his dragonhide boot. 

“And when I’m annoyed, I go for the bollocks!” She quickly slashed a v into the back of his shirt before he could riposte. He held up his hands in acquiescence and stepped back into the submissive stance, one knee in the dirt. “Get up!”

“You had two hits, milady--”

She flicked her wrist so her steel sang beneath his chin, and his adam’s apple bobbed in recognition of the threat. “I say when the challenge has ended,” she said softly, “and it has not. Stand up.”

At the point of her sword, the red-haired knight stood, slowly. She allowed him to step out of her reach once more and readied herself--knees bent, foot forward, hard stare settled on her opponent for whom she had lost all patience. And yet… he had lasted the longest by far. She had to admit that she wanted him to do it, to really  _ fight. _ Show her what he’s made of, and not what he thinks she wants to see. 

“You’re holding back,” she said with measured ire. “Prove that you’re a worthy challenger.”

“I hoped you might ask that of me.” He held up a finger and gestured for the squire. The panicked boy looked between his princess and the knight. She nodded for the boy to do as he was bidden. The knight murmured something low in the boy’s ear. The squire’s eyes widened and then he looked up at the man as if he had been given the finest gift. He took the rapier from the knight with reverence. And then, he turned towards the princess. And he brought her the weapon. He knelt at her feet.

“Sir Charles bids you accept this gift as a token of goodwill,” the squire squeaked. In the young man’s hands, she was able to better observe the rapier, which was not ordinary at all… the grip was wrapped in burgundy leather, braided tightly up to the pommel. The hilt, swept as it was, had been bent into the curling semblance of an H. On the blade itself, leading downwards, something had been stamped into the metal.

_ Ronald. _

Suddenly, her vision was obscured by threatening tears. Her heart stopped. Her Ronald, the boy who had died for nothing, killed in battle by friendly arrows, the boy who had loved her before she had a title to claim, before the throne was in her grasp, and long before there were elegies sung to her deeds with a sword. The boy in whose memory she took up the sword, and against whom she measured all others. 

“My brother,” he said lowly, before her now with a new sword tied at his hip. “I believe you loved him.” He eased her old, familiar sabre from her hands and handed it off to gods-know-whom.

“I did,” she whispered. A hot tear splashed on the new blade, the one she didn’t remember taking from the squire. The one with  _ his  _ name on it.

_ “That _ is why I came.” His hand found her cheek, then, wiping away the trail of tears that had manifested there. “Because I loved him. I fight in his name. And so do you.”

“How did you know?” She leaned into the touch at her cheek for just a moment before remembering that they had an audience, which waited upon the completion of the challenge. She straightened her back, but kept her eyes cast down at the gifted blade.

“I met you a long time ago, back when Ronnie was apprenticing with the blacksmith. You probably don’t remember. I was enlisted then, and hardly spoke two words to anyone. But he came home with tales of you and your lessons at the castle, how you  _ insisted _ that your teacher train him too so you’d have someone your own size to fight.” He chuckled then, and the rumble of laughter seemed to surround her in warmth. “He told me of kissing you that first time, under the stars. How he ran so fast because he thought you were angry with him. How you whipped him in your next duel, for running away. I know everything, Princess.”

Hermione dared to look up at him, then. He bore all the brotherly familiarity of his brother’s visage. The kind crinkle at the corner of his eyes was especially Ronald’s. So, too, were the dimples at the corners of his mouth, and the cheekbones which cut a fierce frame around his grey-green eyes.

“You have disarmed me,” she murmured.

“He wrote to me after he enlisted and told me of you, and all the oaths you swore to him if he would just  _ come home. _ I believe I found myself taking your words to heart as if they were meant for  _ me--and  _ when he died, I ached for your loss. I still ache for you.”

“What do you know of me?”

“You are not impressed by finery and masculine showmanship,” he said simply, gesturing to the flags which she had ripped from the poles of each defeated challenger. “You demand an equal, that you do not want to be feared or treated with delicacy. I know you want your word honored in action.”

“Fine words,” she admitted, but she tilted her chin up. “But I am not persuaded by gifts, Sir.”

“It is not from me. Well, not in full,” he said, grasping her wrist. He turned her hand to reveal the underside of the blade. Just beneath the hilt was the blacksmith’s stamp:  _ RW. _

He steadied her hand as it trembled. “I finished the leather. But he made it for  _ you. _ He intended to give it to you when he returned home, when he asked you to forsake your duty to your throne and be his wife. He charged me with keeping it safe. I believe I have done right by it.”

“You have,” she gasped, sniffling away the tears which continued to fall. “What do you want of me?”

“To meet you in the arena as our true selves, with steel of my brother’s anvil, and when it is done, I will daily strive to help you mend.”

Her heart clenched at that. “What if you lose?”

The man stood tall and held out a gloved hand to her in silent offering of a renewed challenge. She took his hand readily, and held it firm. His hand seemed made to grasp hers, or at least his gloves where--the seams of their palms made the leather kiss like lovers. Perhaps her thoughts shouldn’t tend that way, but Hermione didn’t want to let go. He held all the pain she had ever felt in his memory, because he had lost Ronald, too. It didn’t feel right to let him go, challenge-be-damned. But he wanted to duel, and she was skilled enough to best any man, whether or not he got under her skin.

“Especially if I lose,” he said, finally. The air sizzled between them. A piece of hair fell across his forehead and it sent a fire through her like no other.

“If you lose, I may suspect it is because you pity me,” she said softly. 

He shook his head in disbelief. “Pity you? I  _ envy  _ you.” 

“Envy is a sin, you know.” She cleared her throat. 

“So is coveting my brother’s fortune, and yet I have done so these ten years.” He released her hand and bowed, but she could just make out a tinge of pink in his cheeks. 

When he took his stance this time, it was with his new sword, which had been proffered in the interim of her emotional reunion with the memory of her first love. His sabre was white steel, and his own handle had been wrapped in black velvet. He rolled his shoulders, and this time his stance was his own style.  _ Thibault. _ Not her specialty, but a familiar style nonetheless.

Then, it became clear who he was. Not just Ronald’s elder brother, the only living sibling he had left, but a member of the Brotherhood of Tamers, and the black flag--they fought no wars for seated monarchs, and rarely showed their faces in courts. Nothing they did was for glory. They worked for the downtrodden. This was fitting for the brother of a fallen soldier, and even still… it spoke of his values. The poor, the sick… the heartbroken. 

He was not a knight. Not really. He was not a servant of his king, or an enlisted man at the whim of some great power. He was a regular man, and he  _ knew _ his impact on the world. But she had set a challenge, and all those in attendance hung on the decision she might make if he proved a worthy opponent. So, she took her stance.

She held her blade before her face, and slashed it down. Then, the fight was afoot.

The whoosh of steel through the air propelled the audience into reacting accordingly; they gasped as the rapiers missed each other by centimetres, only to clash again when he parried her thrust. He laughed in surprise, but he anticipated her reaction, deftly blocking her behind his back and spinning away as she swiped the sabre. The gifted blade. It was perfectly balanced, a superior sword to her other in every possible way, and yet she could not have anticipated how his steel sang through the air and caught the elbow of her jacket. 

The leather split. He winced in apology, but he renewed his efforts, rolling beneath her swift strike and shoving her behind the knees with his shoulder. Even as she fell, he gripped her skirt, at once keeping her aloft and yet within his control. He tugged her towards him. She pointed her toes and used his momentum against him, pitching herself feet-first between his legs in a slide, and rended the skirt from her belt with a sickening rip. He was left with a hefty piece of silk in his fist. He whipped the fabric at her to obscure her view, but she sliced the silk like butter and kicked his foot out from under him. He fell forward into a roll again, but sat up to her blade at his neck. The tip of his sword worried the front laces of her jacket.

They stared at each other, breathing heavily. She beamed. She could not help it. It was thrilling to be rendered breathless by an opponent, to fight and be challenged… she could not stop smiling. She sat up on her knees and he let his own rapier fall into the dirt. She loomed over him. He looked up at her like she was the sun.

"Claim your prize then," he said.

“If I kiss you now, they will think I’m mental,” she whispered, using the edge of her blade to graze his cheek. “But  _ gods, _ I want to.”

“Since when do you care what  _ the people _ think?” He curled his hands into the front of her jacket, despite being almost prone. His eyes were wild. It felt like a moment hinged on aggression, but it wasn’t. It was about control.

She snapped her wrist and drew the smallest line of blood across his cheekbone. He growled and tried to tug her down to him, but she shook her head. 

“I have to draw blood or they will think I have gone soft,” she said. “But you have won.”

“Princess?” He held out a hand to her and she took it.  _ “You _ were always meant to be the victor of this challenge. Were you not?”

She stood, hand clasped in his, and pulled him up to stand so they were chest-to-chest. His eyes shone in an unspoken emotion, and he clasped their hands over his heart. He bent his head then, and kissed her hand. The crowd roared and she preened to hear their delight. She stepped back from him. The knight bowed. Then, she winked. Hermione turned on her heel and strode to her father, who had been leaning over the railing even before she moved. He looked quite stoic, but the look in his eyes belied his understanding.

“Do we have a winner?” he murmured. She nodded. “He fought well, my dear. He is well matched to you.”

“He did not come to fight. And that is why he won.” 

“Is that what you wish?”

“Father… I did not know what I wished. Until today. I set an impossible challenge, because I did not want it to be met. But it has.”

She turned back to the crowd, but the winner,  _ her knight… _ he was gone. She looked around, but there was no sign of him, except that his flag lay in a heap, entangled in her skirt, in the middle of the arena. Then, her feet hovered above the ground, and she was  _ flying, _ new rapier sheathed at her side.

The courtyard of the challenger’s stables was empty in the waning twilight, save the red knight (who was still nursing his pierced ear, and wailing like the thing had been severed from his body), and the squire, who was attempting to carry several pieces of black platemail. The armor clattered to the ground as she sprinted towards the squire and he pointed to the far gate, a good fifty yards down the bank of stalls. It was the very last one, the smallest, made only to hold a mule or small pony, but… inside, sure enough, a man in grey with hair like fire rested his head against the wall. She peered at him over the door. He was just visible in the low lamplight. 

“I cannot name my champion in his absence.” 

His eyes were shut, but the corner of his mouth quirked up. “I do not think that is what you really want.” His voice was so low that she had to strain to decipher what he had said. 

“Oh, no?” she huffed. “Then what was  _ that?”  _ She sideled into the stall and clicked the latch behind her. Then, she knelt beside him. Of their own volition, her hands raised to his chest, and she knew she shouldn’t, but she pressed until she felt the heat of his skin. 

“You are hurting, Princess. And frankly…” He sighed, and his eyes opened once more. He looked up at her with a sadness that broke her heart. “You do not have to perform your worthiness for them. You think you do, because you are the  _ princess of the realm, _ but you do not owe them a show of talent.”

“Do I not?” she whispered. “I am the only heir, the future queen--”

“Then take care of your people.” He threaded his hands into her hair and tugged. “Mete out your efforts where they will be most useful, and you will prove all that needs proving. But I… do not want to be the mark by which all your qualities are compared, or a prize to be won. I want to liberate you from all that.”

“How? I am… trapped in it, am I not?”

Then, he tutted, lips pursed in contemplation. He brushed hair behind her ears. “Who demanded this show from you? Who is it for?”

She considered him. He was a veritable stranger to her, and yet she melted into his arms, a man who had just met her blow-for-blow in the arena, who now sat in a pile of hay in a mule’s stall,  _ demanding  _ to know why she felt she must perform her power in a show of force. But he was right. 

It wasn’t enough to have the keys to her father’s kingdom, and all that the rite of passage entailed.  _ Enough _ ceased to be when the love of her life died. She had spent so long trying to fabricate a reason to get out of bed. In the depths of her sadness, the reason was the sword. She practiced with the masters until she wore through her gloves, and then her shoes, and then her sparring partners. She fought for sport until it obscured her loneliness, and served to keep everyone at arm’s length. Including her father. He loved her, but the king did exactly as she bid him and no more. Her mother barely spoke to her; they could not relate on the finer points, and she was as much a puzzlement to the queen as she was to herself. 

She was so lonely that sometimes a full moon felt like a friend. A brightly glinting star was a companion. Things, intangible things that she could only cling to for as long as they would have her--for the duration of the night, until they were gone. She was lonely. She  _ ached.  _ Not for Ronald. For herself. And now things were real, and her actual life was looming before her with a crown hanging over her head like a noose. Loneliness felt certain.

Every silly thing she did, which brought on adrenaline, was to tamp down the desperate pain of not having a single person who really saw her. Even her lady’s maid didn’t look her in the eye.

“For me,” she whispered finally.

“Do they know how you have suffered?” he asked, as innocently as if asking about the weather. But when she shook her head, she felt the weight of the question pull her chin to her chest. His hand was at her nape. He shouldered the heaviness which broke in her. The tears came again. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her temples. He let her wet his shirt as the unvoiced pain choked her. 

“I know it. I have felt it every day since he died. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that it has weighed on you, and you do not deserve to suffer any longer.”

“Why are you doing this?” she cried. “You’ve won. You’ve earned your place--in my court, by my side!”

He cupped her chin and sighed. “I am not your champion,” he insisted. “But I may endeavor to deserve you. Magnificent creature that you are.”

“Sir Charles, is it?” Her cheeks flushed when he nodded. “I am Hermione Jeanette Granger, only daughter of King Daniel o’er the Grange. Princess, heir to the throne, best fighter in the realm, and helplessly out of my depths. Please… you seem to understand things about me that I do not, you gave me the greatest gift I have ever received. I would be a fool to let that go.”

“I should not have surprised you with the sword so publicly; I only played into your charade. I have carried it with me for years, hoping that our paths would cross--this seemed the only way.”

“Is that the only reason you entered my challenge?” Her voice betrayed more disappointment than she had hoped.

He sighed. “Your majesty--”

_ “Hermione.” _

“Princess, I have… cared for you from a distance, for as long as my brother spoke of you. First, on his behalf, and then in his memory. I wondered if you would measure up to the sainted beauty in my head, or if he had made you up.”

“And?” She swiped at the thin cut on his cheek, which she had made for the benefit of her ego more than anything. He caught her wrist.

“I suppose you are decent,” he sniffed, but then he grinned when her mouth fell open in indignation. He caught her chin. “I am not so chivalrous, you know.”

“I am counting on that.” She inclined her head until her lips found his. It was not like princesses were supposed to be kissed, but then again, not much about him was par for the course. It was angry, grateful, broken, and whole. She wondered then how she had ever breathed before, how she had ever thought she knew what she wanted before this man gave her the gift of herself in the form of a perfectly smithed sabre, from the hands of her first love, a boy she remembered more like an echo of a memory. 

“Do you kiss every challenger?” 

“You watched me. What do you think?”

He rested his head against the wall, and smirked at her. “I arrived quite late. Nearly missed the entire event. Had to bribe the trumpets to announce me, so… I did not see a thing.”

“What a shame,” she sighed. 

“That fellow out there with the bum ear?”

“My handiwork.”

“Good girl.”

“Not so.”

“No?”

She fisted his shirt in his hands and pushed him forcefully against the boards. “No.” She tugged the leather tie from his hair and loosed the great red mane. He huffed against her cheek.

“I am not a saint, woman.” He held her cheeks between his hands and forced her to keep his gaze.

“Oh no? You came here to give him back to me, with no design for yourself. And you did, in a way. I will always miss him. But… we were children.” Her voice broke, but no more tears fell.  _ “You _ rose to my challenge. I hope you will rise to the next.”

“What challenge is that?” He laid his hand over hers.

“To heal. With me.” The knight who wasn’t a knight tugged her close, looping his arm around her waist. Princess or no, she complied. “I do not know you,” she whispered, “but I will spend every day learning you. With my hands, my heart… my blade.”

“If I am to agree to this, you must promise me that you will give up these silly tournaments of skill.”

“Why?” She grinned when his eyes narrowed. The wheels were turning in his head, and he upended her, pressing her back into the hay.

“If you want to slay men for sport, at least choose more worthy opponents! Bastards and cutpurses, the lot of them.” He nosed her cheek. She propped herself on her elbows to get closer, but he pulled back. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” The agreement fell from her lips. He caught the oath in a kiss. 

“Good.” He handily lifted her beneath the arms, until she stood once again. She was covered in straw, they both were, but they shared a look between them that was full of a promise which belonged only to them. She smoothed her hands over his chest.

“My father will be expecting me-- _ us-- _ in the arena.”

“You promised,” he said gently, pulling a piece of straw from her hair. 

“Which is why,” she said, hastily tugging him away from the open door as a collection of men on horseback passed, “you will come to my father tomorrow. I will disappoint him by not returning, and  _ tomorrow _ we will speak to him privately, wherein I will make my will known.”

“What is your will, Princess?” He wrapped his arms around her proudly.

“Not to be alone.” She admitted the plain truth to him, without frills. As much as she wanted to cry again, to sag into his arms in relief, she felt more sure of what she wanted than she had in a long time.

In the hollow of her neck, he found the softest place, and kissed his own promise over her pulse point. "You won't be."

**Author's Note:**

> Join me to chat on Tumblr at TheSuperJane!


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